Video games and video game systems have become extremely popular. Video game devices or controllers typically use visual and auditory cues to provide feedback to a user. In some interface devices, kinesthetic feedback (such as active and resistive force feedback) and/or tactile feedback (such as vibration, texture, and heat) is also provided to the user, more generally known collectively as “haptic feedback” or “haptic effects.” Haptic feedback can provide cues that enhance and simplify a user's interaction with a video game controller, or other electronic device. Specifically, vibration effects, or vibrotactile haptic effects, may be useful in providing cues to users of video game controllers or other electronic devices to alert the user to specific events, or provide realistic feedback to create greater sensory immersion within a simulated or virtual environment.
Other devices, such as medical devices, automotive controls, remote controls, and other similar devices where a user interacts with a user input element to cause an action, also benefit from haptic feedback or haptic effects. For example, and not by way of limitation, user input elements on medical devices may be operated by a user outside the body of a patient at a proximal portion of a medical device to cause an action within the patient's body at a distal end of the medical device. Haptic feedback or haptic effects may be employed to alert the user to specific events, or provide realistic feedback to the user regarding an interaction of the medical device with the patient at the distal end of the medical device.